


The Legend of Hanna Theater

by cori_the_bloody



Series: The Chronicles of C-Town [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 06:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5118086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dawn drags Buffy into a haunted theater on Halloween night, and they’re both surprised when they run into an old friend. (One-shot written for a Halloween fic exchange)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Legend of Hanna Theater

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers:** Set after both BtVS and AtS and contains references to the ends of both series.  
>  **Disclaimer:** I do not own this world or these characters, but I do enjoy playing with all of them.  
>  **Author’s Note:** Many thanks to my patient and dear beta, drusillathekiller, and to magicboxprompts for running the exchange! My prompt was someone takes Dawn trick-or-treating, and I hope this lives up to the expectation.

Dawn walks up the leaf-littered driveway to Buffy and Giles’s town house on the outskirts of Cleveland, holding her jacket together with one hand and keeping her bike steady with the other. The air is brisk and makes her skin pimple, but her spirits cannot be dampened by the weird Northeastern weather. Her world literature class at Cleveland State—the last class she has on Fridays—had finished early on account of her professor being a giant Halloween nerd.

Of course, the actual holiday was tomorrow, but Dawn hadn’t been about to point that out to Dr. Park.

“Buffy?” Dawn calls, using her key to unlock the front door.

“Been out all day,” Rona informs her, walking by with a bag of popcorn in her hand. “Drove Xander and Willow to the airport at the butt-crack of dawn.”

The first year and a half after the humongo battle in Sunnydale, the Scooby Gang traveled around the world, checking in on as many recently-activated slayers as possible. Things had been wild and adventurous but Dawn almost didn’t complete high school. That was when Buffy insisted they settle down somewhere.

Giles had been quick to bring up the fact that Cleveland was still very much on top of a Hellmouth. He bought a house and started a second branch of The Magic Box.

Rona, who had family in the area, tagged along, and Andrew was pretty much a permanent fixture in their lives whether they liked it or not. Quarters were close, but they were cozy.

The other Potentials had spread throughout the world, but they make a point to keep in contact.

“Hey, Bitty Summers,” Rona’s cousin- Lissa -greets her, following Rona up the stairs.

“I’ve told you, like, a thousand times that I prefer Dawn,” she rolls her eyes and then walks down the hall to look for Giles in his study. When she sees that he’s not there, she takes the stairs two at a time to the second floor landing, dumps her bags in her room, and goes to find Rona and Lissa.

“So what did you bring?” Rona asks.

Dawn leans against Rona’s bedroom door. “I don’t—”

It becomes clear that Rona’s talking to Lissa when she pulls a stack of DVDs out of her bag. “I’ve got _Arachnid_ , _Psycho_ , _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ , _Night of the Living Dead_ , and _Hellraiser_.”

“Ooh,” Dawn says. “Are you having a spooky Halloween-eve movie marathon?”

“No,” Rona deadpans, “We’re baking some cupcakes.”

“Wanna join us?” Lissa offers, pinching her cousin’s side.

“No thanks,” Dawn says. “My lit professor made us tell scary stories in class today and I’d rather not subject myself to more cartoonish violence. Not one story was sufficiently disturbing.”

“That _is_ disappointing,” Rona clucks her tongue. “You should hear Lissa here tell the Legend of Hanna Theater. It’s seriously fucked up.”

“What’s the Legend of Hanna Theater?”

“Oh man,” Lissa’s eyes go wide and she sets aside the movies. “You’re telling me you’ve lived in Cleveland for almost a year and you haven’t heard this story yet?”

Dawn shakes her head.

“Well that’s just tragic. C’mon: pop a squat,” she pats the bed.

“Shouldn’t have said anything,” Rona says, slumping. “I’ve heard this at least 30 times.”

“Can it.” Lissa smirks at her cousin before turning to Dawn. “Okay, so, the year was 1974. Racial tensions were high, communism was getting a bad rap, and the human race was learning a whole bunch of shit about space.”

“We’ve all attended American history classes, Lissa,” Rona snipes. “Skip to the good stuff.”

“You know this story requires exposition,” she says, nearly pushing Rona off the bed. “Don’t ruin it for Bitty Summers.”

“Yeah, don’t ruin it for me! My interest is officially piqued,” Dawn says, flipping her hair over her shoulder and settling in.

“Okay,” Lissa says, licking her lips and closing her eyes. “So the year was 1974. The world was at a crossroads, and the scene in Cleveland was pretty much on par with the world.

“Enter playwright with a rising star: W. S. Spektor. He’d just debuted a one-act in Chicago titled _Sickle_. It was getting attention because the characters were basically allegories for corruption, power, the general public—you get the idea—and it pointed some serious fingers at the American government.

“Anyway, he was looking to test it out on more audiences but he didn’t have the money to take his show on the road to New York. So he stopped off in Cleveland where the Playhouse Theater was making a splash in the avant garde theater scene. The board of directors wanted publicity and snagged a golden opportunity when it fell into their lap. A blonde-haired beauty with controversial things to say was sure to snag headlines, so the theater entered a contract with Spektor. He got a six-month run at the Hanna Theater and they got the attention of everybody who was anybody in the theater scene. Sounds like a recipe for a happy ending, right? Wrong. Spektor picked up some enemies during his rise to notoriety. One in particular, a Millie Escuderas, was stirring up some serious hell—the non-literal kind at this point in our story. You see, Spektor didn't come by _Sickle_ honestly. He'd ripped it off from Escuderas. Since she was an outspoken woman of color in the 70s, her side of the story has never been told very favorably." Lissa pauses to roll her eyes. "It's not totally clear what went down between her and Spektor before the Chicago run of the show because there are a couple different versions. The facts, as far as I can tell, are Spektor tutored Escuderas in English, they struck up a friendship, she asked him to help her write out this idea she had for a play, they started sleeping together, Spektor's long-term girlfriend found out and dragged her name through the mud, Spektor broke off all contact, and, less than a year later, Spektor was in the papers, hailed as a genius for his scathing satire of the times: _Sickle_.

"When Escuderas got wind of this, she was understandably pissed. She'd tried protesting the Chicago run, but was largely ignored: discredited as a whore. When she heard about the contract with the Playhouse, she decided to take a different approach to shutting the production down.

"Escuderas came to Cleveland with the hopes of staying for a couple days, carrying out her mission, and then going home. Initially, she went looking for some kind of spell to help her wreak her vengeance, but she wasn’t a practicing witch and the Wiccan community here in C-Town isn't about using the dark arts for…Well, darkness. So she eventually turned to demons. You remember that demon trafficking ring Buffy dismantled last month?”

“Of course,” Dawn scoffs. “How could I forget? It was, like, the biggest battle since The First and left a giant crater where Sunnydale used to be.”

“I’m familiar with the story. Rona only brags about it daily.”

“That was some heroic shit.” Rona punches her cousin in the arm. “I thought for sure I was gonna die. _Excuse me_ for being fucking delighted that I didn’t.”

“Okay, okay,” Dawn says, breaking up their squabble. “It’s been established that I remember the demon operation.Why did you bring it up?”

“The vampire running it in the 70s, Dee, was batshit crazy. She was the definition of chaotic neutral and way more tolerant of humans than most demons, which was why she listened to Escuderas’s story instead of immediately killing her. Dee decided she was interested in the woman’s vengeance and sold her three Fyarl demons to solve her problem.”

“Oh, I know those!” Dawn says. “Giles turned into one once.”

“If you know Fyarls, then you know they’re very hard to control,” Lissa says.

Rona cuts her off; “Wait, back it up. Watcher extraordinaire was once a crush-kill-destroy Fyarl demon?”

“Yeah-huh.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Lissa says pointedly. “Fyarls are hard to control, and Escuderas had to be careful with her timing. She didn’t want to be known as a murderer in addition to her unsavory reputation as a whore. So, she started staking out rehearsals, studying Spektor’s schedule, and thinking of ways to lure him away from the theater.

“She always chickened out at the last moment, though. Filled with self-hatred and frustration, Escuderas became consumed with the idea of Spektor meeting his demise but couldn't seem to act. She started to go mad.

“Finally, it was the night before _Sickle_ ’s Cleveland premier—of which today is the anniversary— that Spektor found her lurking in the theater. The cast never got through their final dress rehearsal because Escuderas and Spektor started shouting at each other and didn't stop. Everyone went home, and that was the last time anyone besides Spektor saw Escuderas alive.

“They found her body in a mausoleum the next morning, ripped to shreds and covered in mucus.

“It was probably the Fyarl demons, but Spektor woke up in the same cemetery with no recollection of the previous hours and was suddenly wanted for murder. Racked with guilt and sure he’d be exposed as a fraud, Spektor went back to Hanna Theater one last time. He wrote a note confessing completely for the crimes and hung himself from the stage lights.

“The note was never found. The Playhouse had too much riding on the production and staged a cover up. Turned the whole sordid affair into a Johnathan Larson deal.

“And because his soul never got to reconcile what he did,” Lissa cocks her eyebrow, “it still haunts the theater, whispering to the guilt-ridden on Halloween night and claiming their lives. Nobody even steps foot in that theater from October 29th to November 2nd. They’re too afraid of tempting Spektor’s spirit.”

“Pfft,” Dawn scoffs. “That’s not that scary. I’ve dealt with ghosts before. One time my Mom—”

A loud _crash_ sounds somewhere else in the house and all three girls jump.

After a beat, Rona says, “We should probably check that out.”

“Good idea,” Dawn taps her on the shoulder. “You’re a slayer. Report back.”

“I thought you weren’t scared,” Rona says.

“I’m not! I’m just…really comfortable right now.”

Rona’s about to say something else when a figure covered in slime and brandishing a great sword plods into the room.

They all scream.

“Is my hair _that_ bad?” Buffy asks, immediately patting her head. Her hand comes away covered in yellow-green slime and she gags. “Oh, yeah. It’s that bad.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Rona shouts. “Don’t you know it’s almost Halloween? You can’t just go sneaking around.”

“Oh, right, I’m the picture of stealth right now. What’s got you guys all wiggy?”

“Ghost story,” Lissa says. “The Legend of Hanna Theater.”

“Never heard it. You staying for dinner?”

“So long as you’re offering,” Lissa smiles.

“You know you’re always welcome here.” Buffy wipes her sleeve across her forehead, but that only smears more slime around. “I really need to shower. Anyone feeling like their day could use some polishing demon goo off a sword can have at this,” she holds up the soiled weapon and then turns to leave the room. She pauses at the door and points at Dawn. “Shouldn’t you be on campus?”

“Class was let out early, and I figured I’d spend the weekend here.”

“Great! Let’s talk more when I’m not covered in guts.”

"Sounds good. You kinda smell."

Buffy sniffs herself and then frowns; " _Kinda_ was generous." And, with that, she leaves.

Dawn gets off the bed. "Thanks for the story. I'm going to get started on some Chemistry homework. Enjoy your movie marathon."

"Hope you can sleep without nightmares tonight, Bitty Summers," Lissa smirks.

"Oh, please," Dawn snorts.

She puts in a dedicated half-hour of calculating chemical kinetics before Buffy knocks on the door to her room.

"So," she does a spin for Dawn. "Fruity goodness, right?"

Dawn wafts some air toward herself. "Eau de Demon has definitely been slain."

"Thank God," Buffy sighs, fluffing her wet hair and bounding over to Dawn's bed.

“Did Xander and Willow get to California okay?”

“Touched down about an hour ago.”

“I can’t believe the Harris’s insisted they visit.”

“Well, it was either now or around Christmas, and Xander didn’t want to ruin Christmas. I’m just glad Willow went with him for moral support. I would have been worried if he had to endure his family alone.”

“They are pretty much insufferable.”

“Mhmm,” Buffy agrees. After a brief pause, she adds, “So tomorrow is Halloween.”

"Comes the same time every year."

"Well yeah…"

Dawn senses Buffy's hesitation. "But?"

"No buts," she frowns thoughtfully. "It's just, you know, a traditionally slow demon day…and the first time we'll be celebrating in this house."

"Celebrating? You nearly beat Giles up for suggesting we decorate and now you want to celebrate?"

Buffy lets out a gusty sigh and falls back into Dawn's comforter. "I've been doing a lot of thinking lately."

"And it's apparently taken a lot out of you," Dawn jibes, flopping down on her stomach next to Buffy.

"Har, har. I'm trying to have a serious moment here."

Dawn studies her sister's face before nodding. "Gotcha. Holding all jokes until the end of your somberness."

"Much appreciated. So, I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I've decided to take you trick-or-treating this year."

Dawn can't stop the cackle that comes out of her mouth. "You been reflecting on the sober activity of begging strangers for candy?"

Buffy elbows her in the side. "You promised."

"Yeah because I thought you were going to say something important."

"This is important," Buffy insists, sitting up. "This is, like, the most important thing."

"Um, in case you've forgotten, you save the world on a regular basis."

"Yes, and this is more important than that. You didn't get a childhood."

Dawn sits up, too. "I mean, not technically, I guess. But I remember having a childhood, so that's—"

Buffy cuts her off. "I'm not saying this right. What I mean is," she pauses, taking a deep breath. "You and I, we've had our share of trauma, right?"

Dawn frowns and traces patterns into the velvet of Buffy's sweatpants. "I guess."

"It feels like forever since we got to just be silly kids. No responsibilities, no slayage to be done. Just two sisters enjoying the finer things in life."

"Like trick-or treating," Dawn says, looking for clarification.

"For instance," Buffy nods. "Now that we can slow down and do normal people stuff, I think we should."

Dawn is silent for a while, studying Buffy's face. When it's clear she's serious, Dawn says, "Are we dressing up?"

Buffy grins and smooths down Dawn's hair. "We totally should. I know it's last minute and everything, but we could probably throw something together."

"People are going to think we're child predators, you know that right?"

Buffy waves off her concern. “You could still pass for 12.”

Dawn gapes. “Are you freaking kidding me? I’m almost six feet tall. You’re the midget. If anything, it’s you we could pass off as younger.” She snaps her fingers. “Oh, I got it. You’re in a mentor program for troubled teens—Mom did always threaten to do more research on those when you snuck out while grounded. And I could be your wise counselor.”

“Why are you always saying you’re ‘ _almost_ ’ six feet tall? You’re five-seven.”

“Exactly!”

“Three inches is a lot, Dawn.”

“Oh, it so is not!”

“Is so!”

“Hey!” Rona bursts into the room. “Mrs. and Mrs. Bickerson! Break it up. The walls in this house are thin as hell and your arguments are stupid. We’re trying to watch monster movies. Make peace.”

“Sorry,” Buffy and Dawn mumble at each other in unison.

“Great.” Rona lets the door fall closed behind her only to pop back in a second later. “By the way, I’m with Dawn on this one. People are going to call the cops on your ass, and if I’m the only one home when you make your one phone call, I’m going to laugh at you.”

Buffy stares at her, intense and menacing, and Rona shrugs.

“Fine, noted.”

###

So that's how they ended up walking through the neighborhoods by the West Side Market dressed as Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.

“I’m just saying,” Dawn gesticulates, spinning her cloth candy bag on her wrist, “that we could have picked less conspicuous outfits. And this green face paint itches. I could have just worn a nametag, you know.”

“Well, I said I wanted an authentic experience. It’s never Halloween until Dawn throws a fit about her costume.”

“This hardly counts as throwing a fit. You’ve heard me scream; you know what I’m capable of. This is more of a…a snit.”

“College girl coming in with the vocab assist.”

“You’re damn right I am,” Dawn bobs her head.

“It is kind of cold anyway and my curls are coming loose. Let’s finish this street and head home.”

“Or,” Dawn hops in front of Buffy, her eyes bright with mischief, “we could do something fun.”

“What’s more fun than free candy?”

“Lots of things.”

“If you didn’t want to come, you could have just said so.”

“Hey, I’m down with the doing of normal things. This was good, and I have enough Butterfingers to last me till the New Year.”

“Like you’re not going to eat them all in one sitting as soon as we get home.”

“That’s…plausible,” Dawn allows. “But as lovely as this has been, it’s only, like, 8:30. Halloween has barely begun. Let’s find something freaky to do!”

“You don’t get enough freakiness the other 364 days of the year?”

“Have you met me?” Dawn asks, crossing her arms and cocking an eyebrow at her sister. “I _love_ freaky stuff.”

“Fine, you’re Queen Freak.”

Dawn rolls her eyes; “If you’re going to get all judgmental on me, we can drop you off at home. I’ll find myself some solitary spookiness.”

“Knowing you, that’ll end well,” Buffy mocks. When Dawn glares her down, she relents. “Okay, okay, that was the last of the judge-y. Where do we go to get our freak on?”

“You know the Playhouse Theater?”

Buffy cocks her head. “I know of it, yeah. I’ve never been much for the show tunes, though, so I haven’t been inside.”

“Well, I have something cool I want to show you there.”

Buffy narrows her eyes, skeptical; “We’re not about to do anything illegal, are we?”

“Definitely…maybe…probably not.”

“Oh yeah. I’m totally convinced.”

“Just come on.”

###

They catch the bus to the theater district, Dawn skipping happily ahead of Buffy, swinging her bag of candy.

“What exactly do you want to show me?” Buffy presses for the twentieth time.

“It’ll be a surprise,” Dawn says, and then adds under her breath, “for both of us.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a huge fan of surprises,” Buffy says, looking around at the crowds of costumed people.

As they’re approaching the building, Dawn sees something that makes her stop in her tracks: a tall man with bleach blonde hair walking toward the theater from the opposite direction. His head is down, so she can’t see his face, but there’s something familiar about him….

She’d done some additional research on W.S. Spektor earlier that day and there were plenty of pictures on the internet. He actually kind of reminded her of a less punked-out Spike, especially because his hair had been nearly white in its blondeness.

Dawn isn’t sure if her brain’s playing tricks on her because she wants to see this guy’s ghost so badly or if the man is really real, but Buffy bumps into her from behind and Dawn takes her eyes off him for a split second.

When she looks back over, he’s gone.

“I feel strange,” Buffy says, rubbing at the back of her neck. “I think…,” she trails off, spinning around.

“What?” Dawn asks, distracted but worried.

“Never mind,” Buffy shakes her head. “I thought I felt-” she stops herself again. “It’s nothing. Are we going inside?” She gestures toward the theater.

“Oh, right. Yeah.”

Apparently a show was just let out because the lobby is flooded with people in fancy, thick coats clutching programs and chatting.

“I feel really underdressed,” Buffy whispers, smoothing down the front of her pink dress self-consciously.

“At least you’re not in a bright green sweater and jeans,” Dawn whispers back, stopping in front of the directory and looking for the Hanna Theater.

“What are we doing here again?” Buffy asks, clearly irritated.

“Follow me,” Dawn says in lieu of answer, grabbing Buffy’s arm and leading her down a dark corridor with black and white tiles and a serious echo.

“I am so grounding you if we get arrested,” she hisses, glancing back over her shoulder every five seconds.

“Would you stop looking so shifty?” Dawn says. “We’re not doing anything illegal right now.”

“ _Right now_?”

“Be quiet! Here we are,” Dawn stops in front of the glass double doors. All the lights are off in the lobby and there’s a chain with a padlock hanging around the door handle. “I don’t know if I can pick this,” she says, gabbing for the padlock. It comes undone in her hand. “Huh. That’s weird.”

“Dawn, I don’t like this,” Buffy says, bouncing from one foot to the other.

But she isn’t listening. One good yank on the door proves enough to get them inside. “This is so cool,” Dawn says, wandering into the lobby where there’s a great big bar on their left and a bunch of vendor’s stands on their right. Up ahead, Dawn sees two large staircases carpeted in red that lead up to the balcony.

“Oh my God,” Buffy whines as she follows. “Mom is definitely rolling in her grave right now.”

As they get closer to the actual theater, they hear a _thunk_ coming from behind the doors. “I think someone’s in here,” Dawn whispers, adrenaline spiking her heart rate.

Buffy produces an axe seemingly out of nowhere and shoves Dawn behind her. “Do you have a weapon?”

Dawn whips a stake from out of her candy bag and Buffy nods approvingly. “That’s, like, the cardinal rule. _Always_ bring a weapon.”

“Very good,” Buffy says. “If I tell you to run, you’ll listen to me?”

“Maybe.”

Buffy rolls her eyes and mumbles something about a pain in her ass before kicking open the thick wooden doors that lead to the theater’s house.

The first thing Dawn notices is the lonely ghost light sitting just left of center stage. It casts strange shadows in the high-ceilinged room. The second thing she notices is the ornate carvings on the walls that seem to come alive and pop out at her in the eerie lighting.

The third thing is the blonde man she’d noticed earlier clomping out onto the stage from the right wing.

“Vampire,” Buffy whispers to Dawn, who holds her stake up higher in response. To the vamp, Buffy says, “Well, well, well, look what we have here.” She starts walking down the central aisle towards the stage. “A vampire that’s decided to go against the grain and wreak havoc on Halloween. How very _original_.”

The vampire’s head snaps up and Dawn gasps. “Buffy?”

Buffy trips over her own feet but catches herself before she falls face-first into the ground. “Spike!? B-but you’re dead.”

“Well, yeah, been that way for quite a while now.”

“Yeah, but I don’t mean undead. I mean obliterated, kaput, whole-town’s-a-crater kind of dead.”

Spike rubs the back of his neck and shrugs sheepishly. “Yeah.”

“ _Well_ ,” Buffy says, frozen in place. “What the hell?”

Before Spike can sputter out an explanation, Dawn pushes past Buffy and runs onto the stage. She nearly tackles Spike to the ground, throwing her arms around him and squeezing tight.

He doesn’t react for a moment but eventually pats the back of her head. “Good to see you, too, Nibblet.”

“Where have you been?” she asks, pulling away and punching him in the arm.

“Los Angeles for a spell…also spent some time in San Antonio and then Chicago before moving here.”

“Los Angeles?” Buffy gets a hold of herself and joins them on stage.

“Angel’s fine, I presume,” Spike says, though she didn’t ask. “We fought together in one hell of a battle. Got separated and never reunited, but he’s kept in touch.”

“How did you…”

“Not get obliterated?” Spike guesses.

Buffy nods.

“Still don’t know the magic behind it, actually, but the short of it is the amulet Angel gave you trapped my essence. Was a ghost for a bit. Then I wasn’t. Now I’m here.”

“Why didn’t you…” Buffy trails off, unsure how to ask her question.

“Oh, right,” Spike says, looking everywhere but her face. “I just,” he starts, but then lets out a big, gusty breath instead of an explanation.

When neither of them says anything else, Dawn asks, “What are you doing here, in this theater?”

“Same as you, I reckon. Got a tip there’s a ghosty needs expelling.”

“What?” Buffy’s suddenly more alert.

“Yeah. Searched every nook of the damn place and didn’t find a thing, though.”

“Dawn,” Buffy flairs her nostrils at her sister, “did you know about this?”

“Maaaaybe,” Dawn shrugs, batting her eyelashes innocently.

Before Buffy can start lecturing her, the door to the theater slams shut, echoing ominously.

“I think we’ve found our ghosty,” Buffy says, holding her weapon at the ready.

Spike is in sync with her, jumping into action and cracking open his own means of defense: a book. “Got myself a trinket at the magic shop on 27th Street,” he says, pulling a charm out of his pocket. “So long as I say the spell right, should capture the bloke.”

The house lights start to flicker and then burst. “Well,” Buffy whips her head around to look at him, “What are you waiting for? Get casting!”

“Gotta light the candles first,” he explains, pulling five out of the pocket of his duster. He tosses two of them and a lighter to Dawn as the ground starts to rumble beneath them. “They go at each point of the symbol.”

For the first time, Dawn notices that Spike’s painted a familiar-looking mystical character on the stage floor. She catches the candles and has to scramble for the lighter while the ground threatens to shake itself apart.

A deafening _whoosh_ fills the air and takes Dawn’s voice when she tries to yell that her candles are ready to go.

Thankfully, Spike doesn’t need the okay. He gets his last candle burning and immediately starts chanting: “ _Terra, vente, ignis et pluvial_.”

No sooner do the words leave his mouth does the ghost light on stage explode, blowing shards of glass in every direction, extinguishing the candles, and leaving a menacing calm in its wake.

“Uh, guys?” Dawn calls into the pitch blackness.

“You manipulative, selfish bastard,” Buffy’s voice comes from the dark. It doesn’t sound quite like Buffy, though. The natural cadences are all wrong and there’s a deeper, supernatural quality to it.

Spike’s voice answers, whiny and with a completely different accent than usual. “Millie, if you’d only allow me to explain myself. I was as powerless in the matter as you were.”

“Bullshit!” Buffy’s voice rings throughout the theater and Dawn ignites the lighter in her hands, creating a small circle of light. “Men have _all_ the power. They take what they want and leave you with nothing. I don’t owe you anything, Spek. The _least_ you owe me is an explanation.”

“It was best for us that I cut off all contact, you had to know that.”

“Best for _who_ , Spek? I trusted you with my life’s work and you banished me from your heart the second it was convenient.”

“God, no. Millie, not a day went by that I didn’t think of you.”

“Little good that does me. You could have helped me. Instead, you turned your back on me.”

“I was confused, okay? I’ve done bad things—terrible things—and you can’t just expect a guy to come to terms with his own shortcomings in a day.”

“You make it sound like I didn’t give you any chances. I gave you _every chance_.”

Mesmerized, Dawn watches the back and forth until Buffy surges forward and slams her fist into Spike’s cheek.

“Okay,” Dawn looks around her. “Where did that book go?”

“Millie,” Spike exclaims, surprised. He searches her face, wounded, and then spreads his arms out, giving her full access. “It’s not like I don’t deserve more. Come on. Do it again.”

Dawn crawls over to where they're standing, holding up the lighter and looking for the spell book. She gets all the way to the edge of the stage before she sees that it’s fallen on the steps.

Thankfully, Spike marked the page with the spell he was planning to use. All she has to do is light the candles and find the charm.

“Oh, enough of your self-flagellation crap,” Buffy-as-Millie says, punching Spike-as-Spektor in the stomach. “You’re not some tortured soul. Take ownership of what you did, but don’t make the whole damn process about you!”

Dawn resets the last candle, growing more urgent with each of Spike's grunts and groans, and lights the flame…where did that charm get off to?

“What am I supposed to do then?” Spike wails. “How do I make it right?”

In the new, flickering light of the candles, Dawn can see much better. Something glimmers in the first row of the audience, catching her eye.

“Apologize,” Buffy kicks Spike in the shin, tears streaming down her face. “ _Mean it_.”

Sure enough, the charm had been blasted out of Spike's hand, landing in one of the front row chairs. Dawn runs back onto the stage and opens the book, holding up the charm in one hand.

“I am so sorry, Millie. I took advantage of you after you gave me everything. I’m _so_ sorry!”

Buffy's attacks become weaker and weaker as the tears stream noiselessly down her face, and Dawn shouts the spell with all the might she has: “ _Terra, vente, ignis et pluvia. Cunctate quattuor numina, vos obsecro. Defendete nos a recente malo resoluto. Omnia vasa veritatis_!”

A blinding light rises up over Spike and Buffy and is sucked into the charm in Dawn’s hands with a powerful rush. All three of them are knocked away from each other, and Dawn lands painfully on her backside.

There’s a moment of silence in which none of them are quite sure what to do. Finally, Buffy speaks up. “That’s the second time a ghost has used me as a vessel for closure and let me tell you: I am sick and tired of playing shrink to spooks. The ghosties of the world are going to have to look elsewhere for their healing needs from now on. Dr. Buffy’s comfy chair is officially out of commission.”

Dawn groans as she gets to her feet, but she can feel the effects of the spell still thrumming in her veins. “I wonder if they’re gone for good.”

Spike stands and brushes himself off, grabbing one of the extinguished candles and lighting it again. “That was some serious spellcasting you did there, Nibblet. My guess is actors will be the only tortured souls haunting this place from now on.”

“That was pretty cool, huh?”

“Would’ve made Red proud, ‘m sure.”

“Is anyone hungry?” Buffy asks. “I’m feeling starved.”

“Oh! I could go for a big, juicy burger. And possibly a milkshake.”

“Done and done,” Buffy smiles, tucking Dawn under her arm. “You coming?” she asks Spike.

“Just like that?”

Buffy shrugs, “Yeah, why not?”

“Kinda spent a lot of time imagining what our reunion’d be like. There’re some unsavory versions to be sure,” he quirks his eyebrow and Buffy rolls her eyes at him, smirking fondly. “But the more realistic ones always heavily feature conversation.”

“There’s always time for that later…I’m feeling kinda talked out for some reason.”

Spike grins and follows them off the stage, needing no more encouragement than that. “Wonder why that could be,” he teases.

They walk out of the theater together, Dawn’s arm around Buffy’s waist and Buffy’s hand reaching tentatively for Spike’s. “It’ll be good to have you back,” she says. “Though I won’t be entirely convinced that this isn’t some kind of glamour or elaborate dream until tomorrow.”

Dawn breaks out from under Buffy’s arm and walks backwards in front of her and Spike for a few paces. “This was definitely the coolest Halloween ever.”

“It wasn’t quite the picture of normal I was hoping for,” Buffy sighs. “But, hey, when is my life normal? Besides, sometimes I like it better this way.” She grins, squeezing Spike’s hand.

For the first time since they moved there, Cleveland feels like home.


End file.
